A Star is Born (10 page)

Our wheels touched down smoothly, and we quickly taxied to our gate. All I had with me was my backpack, so I grabbed that and walked beside my personal bodyguard. The Honolulu airport seemed substantially larger than the Maui airport. There were a lot more people in this terminal, even though the Maui airport had been busy.

We exited the airport terminal and made our way to the curbside in front of the airport. Another black SUV was waiting for us with door open and man standing waiting. We entered and left immediately for my as-yet-undisclosed location. Wherever we were going was not close. We drove and drove and drove. We passed through all kinds of scenery and then kept on driving. After forty-five minutes of travel, our car slowed and stopped.

My companion guided me out of the vehicle and to the front door of a modest-looking place. It might have looked modest on the outside, but on the inside it was anything but. On the inside it was palatial, spectacular, grandiose. The first thing that caught my eye was the two-story room in front of me with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. I didn’t even know glass could be made that large, but someone had done it.

And when I saw the scene outside that window, I was grateful that whoever had built this place had made sure the view was preserved. Outside the window was a positively incredible view of the ocean. There was a whole mess of tropical greenery, including the requisite palm trees swaying in the breeze, and one of the most undisturbed views of the ocean I’ve ever enjoyed.

My traveling companion gave me a key to the place—an actual, real, physical, metal key, not one of those credit card door keys. My mind had been so preoccupied with everything over the last few hours, I hadn’t really thought through the whole situation. I didn’t know if the security guy was staying with me—that could be awkward—or if he was going to leave me. I quickly discovered which it was to be.

“I have to go back to Maui. The man who drove us here lives just down the road from the property and is available any time of the day or night. Here’s his number,” he told me as he handed me a business card with the man’s name and phone number preprinted. “Call him if anything comes up or any problem arises. He can take you anywhere you want to go or need to go. Stay as long as you like. There’s no charge. There’s no agenda. There’s no rush.”

“Thanks, man. But I have to be back at school in a couple of days, so I can’t stay more than a night or two.”

“What school?” he asked.

“UCLA. Undergrad.”

“Great,” he said to make chitchat before leaving.

And as suddenly as it had all started, I was once again alone and scared. Not knowing what else to do, I took out my cell phone and called Moira. It was unusual to find her in a place where she could answer her calls. Usually, I had to leave a message and wait for a call back, but today she actually answered.

I said her name, and she immediately said, “What’s wrong?”

“I need to borrow your rusty shoe horn. I’m going to castrate one of your clients.”

“Which one?”

“Who else?”

“What’s he done this time?”

“My boyfriend.” I paused a moment and then continued. “I had a few days break from school, so I flew to Hawaii to surprise Bill. It turns out that I saw more of him out by the pool than I had anticipated. Your client was wrapped around part of my boyfriend.”

“Explain, please.”

“Derrick was on his knees in front of Bill.”

“Oh, crap!” she said.

“Where are you?”

“I spent two days by a pool on Maui, but Bill tracked me down there. I know I have to talk to him, but I’m not quite in the right place to do that yet. When we get to that conversation, it will be difficult. It has to happen, but not today. The hotel moved me to a place on Oahu. I don’t have a clue what the address is. I’m going to stay here tonight and probably fly home tomorrow.”

“So Derrick and Bill…?”

“Are still on Maui, as far as I know. I caught them out back behind Derrick’s house on Maui.”

“Did they see you?”

“Oh, yes. They were so engrossed in what they were doing that I was able to sit down and watch them going at it for five minutes. It was only afterwards that they finally realized that they weren’t alone. Bill tried to talk to me. Derrick, the spineless lizard, simply disappeared. I have no idea where he went, and I don’t much care.”

“So you’re not going to confront him before you leave Hawaii?”

“Not planning on it. I think I’ll sleep here, maybe take a dip in the ocean, and then see if I can change my flight to come home tomorrow.”

“Give me your flight information. I’ll have someone here call and get it changed for you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I protested.

“I know that. Now talk.”

I dutifully read her the information she needed, and then we ended our call, but only after she made appropriate caring noises. She promised to call me back or have someone in her office call with updated travel information.

“Moira.”

“Yes, Mark?”

“Am I doing something wrong? Why does this seem to keep happening to me?”

“Oh, darlin’, I wish I had the answer to that one. If I did I might still be married to one of the bums I married in my younger years. I personally think it comes down to this: men are scum.”

“In case you haven’t noticed….”

“Yes, yes, yes, I know the obvious. We’ll let you in on a special pass.”

This Is Not Going to Work

C
HANGING
from my traveling clothes into my beach clothes (shorts, T-shirt, and sandals) I slipped on a pair of sunglasses, grabbed my key, and went outside into the sunny afternoon to go for a walk. My intended target was the ocean that was so beautifully arrayed outside my window. I hadn’t flown all the way to Hawaii to look at the ocean through a piece of glass. I wanted to feel the sand under my toes, the warmth of the water on my legs, the sunshine on my face.

It was not difficult to make my way to the beach. The view of the house where I was staying was quite different from the beach. Looking back up the hillside, the house looked magnificent. From the street it looked rather basic and plain, simple even. But from the water the magnificence of the house was totally obvious.

The day was beautiful, so it called for some enjoyment, even though I was not necessarily in the mood for enjoying anything at the moment. Maybe the water would help. Before he left, my guide/guard had told me that I was on what locals called the North Shore. He told me that the north shore of Oahu was a mecca for surfers because the waves on this shore were stronger, higher, more intense than anywhere else on the island.

Watching a few waves come in and some surfers try to ride them, I had to agree with my guide’s statements—these waves were really intense and carried one hell of a kick. Lots of guys who tried to hitch a ride on one of the waves wiped out and ended up in the water. I was no surfer, so to me these waves looked totally intimidating. I knew that I was not about to go out and grab a surfboard and try to learn to surf on this beach or any other that had waves like these.

Instead of surfing, I contented myself with walking along the beach, admiring seashells and contemplating my life. While contemplation of my life was not necessarily enjoyable, it was better than sitting inside feeling sorry for myself. The question I had asked Moira earlier during our phone call was one that I really would like to have answered. What was I doing to cause Bill to cheat on me? What wasn’t I doing that he needed? I loved him, and I thought he loved me.

Clearly, this train of thought was sending me into a rapid downward spiral, so I abandoned that line of thinking and sought out something else. While the beach was beautiful and the house was beautiful and the waves were impressive, I was in a much more remote, isolated area than I had been earlier at the hotel. At the hotel I could walk to any one of the half dozen restaurants or half dozen shops to find anything I might want or need. If I was feeling lazy, I could call for room service. But those options were not available here. I was quickly coming to feel too isolated.

I still had Bill’s little plastic card, so I went inside and tried to call the guy who had driven me here earlier in the day. My call rolled right over to voice mail. Rather than leave a message, I grabbed my bag and my keys and went outside to the road. I had never been hitchhiking in my life, but people in Hawaii seemed to be more relaxed about giving strangers a ride, so in no time at all I had a ride that took me partway toward Waikiki. From where they dropped me off, I got another ride easily enough to take me the rest of the way. In each instance I offered profuse thanks to the person who had stopped and picked me up. I certainly did appreciate their help.

It seemed wrong to fly five hours across an ocean and then miss one of the biggest destinations in the islands. I had not seen Waikiki, and I was going to do that. If I didn’t do something, I was going to go nuts, and I didn’t want that to happen.

Pretty much at random, I picked a hotel on the beach that looked nice and asked for a room for the night. The rates on Oahu, or at least in Waikiki, were substantially steeper than they had been on Maui. The same money here didn’t buy as much space or as nice a space as it had on Maui. Nonetheless, I had a place to lay my head and a view of the ocean from the balcony of my hotel room.

The streets of Waikiki were full of traffic. The sidewalks were filled with people walking. There were tourists, there were shops, there were beachgoers, there were people eating in restaurants. There was simply a lot more life here. Yes, I had definitely made the right choice by leaving the house and moving here. Also, when Moira’s people got back to me with my new flight arrangements, I would be able to get to the airport from here a lot easier than I would have been able to from that house.

Again?

M
Y
CONTEMPLATIONS
about the virtues of one place over another were interrupted by the vibration of my iPhone in my shorts pocket. The call was from one of Moira’s people, confirming me on a flight home to LA tomorrow evening at seven o’clock. The flight was not ideal, because it would get me in at some ridiculous hour of the morning and would mean that I would spend most of my daylight hours sleeping. But it meant that I was going home, so I took that to be a positive and left it at that. I thanked the woman who had called and hung up.

I spent several hours wandering around Waikiki, enjoying the scenery, enjoying the abundant life all around me, and enjoying the combination tropical/urban feeling. When I got hungry, I found a place and had some delicious fish and a luxurious dessert made with pineapple that seemed to melt in my mouth. I didn’t know what to call it, but it was delicious. As with the hotel room, I paid for all of this with Bill’s credit card. Once I got back home and got a job again, I would destroy the card and send it back to him.

I topped off my evening with an ice cream cone before wandering back to my hotel. In my room, I put my feet up on the balcony railing and simply soaked in the gentle breeze. I checked my voice mail to see if Moira or anyone else had called—there were a couple of messages, but of no great importance.

I was getting ready for bed about two hours later when I heard a knock at my door. I wasn’t expecting anyone and didn’t think that Bill could have found me again so I opened the door without hesitation. Oh, crap! Bill had found me.

“You really are stalking me, aren’t you?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“How did you find me?”

“Simple. Credit card and telephone. I pay for both, so both companies will talk to me. All I had to do was follow the transactions.”

I remained quiet but walked across the room to the cell phone. After retrieving the instrument, I walked to the open balcony door, pulled back like a baseball pitcher, and sent the device flying through the air, hopefully to crash into something hard or wet, thereby rendering it useless. From sixteen stories up, there was no way a fall like that was going to end with a working phone.